Summary: Hybrid Structures Combine Strengths of
Carbon Nanotubes and Nanowires
Junction between a gold nanowire (top) and a carbon nanotube. Credit:
Rensselaer/Fung Suong Ou
A team of researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has created hybrid structures that combine
the best properties of carbon nanotubes and metal nanowires. The new structures, which are
described in a recent issue of Applied Physics Letters, could help overcome some of the key hurdles to
using carbon nanotubes in computer chips, displays, sensors, and many other electronic devices.
An electron microscope image of a hybrid structure made from a gold nanowire (middle) and carbon
nanotubes. Credit: Rensselaer/Fung Suong Ou
The impressive conductivity of carbon nanotubes makes them promising materials for a wide variety of
electronic applications, but techniques to attach individual nanotubes to metal contacts have proven
challenging. The new approach allows the precise attachment of carbon nanotubes to individual metal pins,
offering a practical solution to the problem of using carbon nanotubes as interconnects and devices in
Original story at www.physorg.com/news87471930.html Page 1/2
computer chips.
"This technique allows us to bridge different pieces of the nanoelectronics puzzle, taking us a step closer to
the realization of nanotube-based electronics," said Fung Suong Ou, the paper's corresponding author and a
graduate student in materials science and electrical engineering at Rensselaer.
As chip designers seek to continually increase computing power, they are looking to shrink the dimensions